A line quoted towards the end of the article is: “Governments should increase taxes on both wealth and high incomes to ensure a more level playing field, and to generate funds needed to invest in healthcare, education and job creation.”

CAFR1 strongly disagrees with this statement above and does so for the following reasons:

Taxation, as unfair as it is standing today, has not solved the world economic woes but in the alternative has increased them while at the same time slowed or in fact has destroyed many economies due to the increased drain of initial and then excessive sustained taxation suppressing economic growth, thus making the lives of the population equally suppressed. Additionally due to the greed and opportunity for self enrichment and power base creation within local governments, the tax burden is ever increasing, year by year, and decade by decade. Or as the old saying goes: “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”

Most of the population (even the well educated here in the US) do not have a clue as to the massive amount of revenue (tax, investment, and enterprise) brought in and collected by their own local governments, in which when looked at (especially collectively) makes those eight individuals spotlighted in the OXFAM report in comparison look like average to poor net worth individuals. EXAMPLE: As of 2009, the collective investment wealth from within the County of Los Angeles (all of the separate Cities, Municipalities, Towns, School Districts, Universities, Enterprise operations, special districts, etc.) “within” Los Angeles County, collectively held liquid investment equated to 1.8 Trillion Dollars) [Collectively held within each distinct local government: LA County 234 Billion Dollars, LA City 115 Billion Dollars, etc., etc., etc…]

Local governments when some of the rocks are turned over by the populace and several if not many specialty investment fund balances are seen (I note to get the Gross balances and NOT the Net. The Gross will show the actual standing balance whereas a Net balance can be striped-down by “projected liabilities” to reflect maybe 1/3rd or less of the Standing Balance) will say when confronted on the issue: “You are not looking at our liabilities, you are only looking at our standing balances.” There are two VERY LARGE points to consider when hearing that blanket statement made from your local government official(s):

Based on the accounting “they” created. they can project out their liabilities 25 to 35-years and they do so with only projecting out their income 1-year. If the “income” was projected out for the same time period, they all would be clearly in the black with no shortfalls at the “present”.

Most large local governments starting in the early 80’s needed “Parking Zones” for the wealth they were amassing. What was devised at that time and forward was to “Promote” debt at the front door to the population, and through the back-door use their own investment assets to fund their own debt. In doing so they were able to create those “Parking Zones” and get extra income (non-disclosed tax) from the return on those Bond Issues and debt instruments used. There are MANY tactics that were utilized to accomplish this, but the bottom line is if the dots were all connected, in most cases 75% + of that new issue and standing debt local governments constantly try to spoon feed us would cross match to their own or other local government investment funds. Technically if crossed matched, at the “stoke of a pen”, that debt could be off-set against the corresponding local government investments funding that debt. I note budgets would also go down being they would no longer be deducting interest + principle payments from their Budgets to offset that debt when canceled out against their own standing investment funds utilized to fund that debt.

TWO CAFR1 Articles per California for reference:

A 2010 challenge CAFR1 made to The San Francisco Chronicle to mention and to publish a few links to some California Local Government CAFRs (and I note sent via email to every reporter at the Chronicle) – http://cafr1.com/challenge.html Result as of 2017 per making simple mention and publication of a few CAFR links by the Chronicle? = zero, Nada, not a peep.

WHAT REAL PATRIOT’S DO

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government." -Thomas Paine

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out...without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.” FL. Hamer